Adventures with the Wife in Space
The Enigmatic All-Mighty Mr Fix-it Show
There’s no doubt that elements of the production are not just average but actively shambolic and characteristic of the era’s weak points. Some of the acting is so bad that you want to hunt down the performers and their families in order to exact fitting retribution. The monsters, in this case the Mandrels, look like a portly Animal Kwackers tribute band, while the sets manage to be both drab and overlit simultaneously.
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Maids-a-Courting
A barrister once commented to me that “actors used to learn how to play barristers by watching barristers. Within a few years, barristers were learning how to be barristers by watching actors.”
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All at Sea
Katherine Levy, however, gives a very stilted, drama-school performance, for the most part her face showing about as much emotion as a very pretty marble statue, despite being kidnapped, drugged and in fear for her own and her brother’s safety. This is in stark contrast to Ian Donnelly’s naturalistic and occasionally over-enthusiastic puppy-like delivery; Donnelly’s eyebrows in particular give an amazing performance, being capable of so much more than Levy’s permanent, slightly constipated furrowing of the brow.
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The Defiant Ones
As such, it’s a decidedly average entry in the canon and not hard to see why it hasn’t troubled TV comedy historians – or even the UK Gold graveyard shift – over the subsequent decades. It does however have the saving grace of a very catchy theme tune by musician turned actor Peter Davison. The boy could have been bigger than Ronnie Hazlehurst but he threw it all away.
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Gender Agenda
Owen’s use of three supposedly separate plays to reiterate and replay key themes leads to a surprisingly rich piece of television drama. It’s less cupid and more psyche, striving to create a complex, layered representation of Mary’s relationships with the opposite sex.
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